Yesterday in the car, my teenage grandson asked me why I didn’t have
music on. Didn’t I like to listen to music in the car, he asked me. Of
course I do, I responded, but I have grown to appreciate the silence, I told
him.
That conversation, brief as it was, has stayed front and center in my mind
ever since. I am not sure when I stopped listening to music in the car. Oh,
I do occasionally, but not with any regularity.
The more I thought about it, the more I came to see that I didn’t stop
listening to music; I started listening to the silence. The silence isn’t empty
at all, as I had always assumed in my younger days. The silence is
pregnant with possibility and filled with the glorious music of the spheres.
What I stopped doing is being afraid to be silent. I stopped having to fill
every moment with something to occupy my monkey brain that spent
every nanosecond looking out there, seeking distraction and a way to fill
what I perceived as emptiness.
When we are young, we are still learning about our world and who we are.
All that stimulation and input provides fodder for thought, triggers our
emotions and simply makes us think. Who am I? Why am I here? That
stimuli offers us the opportunity to wake up and become conscious.
Don’t get me wrong here. I love music and stimulation much as the next
person. But I no longer require it in the same way and I appreciate the
opportunity silence gives me to simply be in the moment. No response is
necessary. I can sit and soak it in. I become aware of my place in the
Whole. I see the Lights of all who share this world with me. I feel our
connectedness and am never ever alone. I am bathed in Love and Light,
and in the higher frequencies now available to me. And all this while I am
simply driving somewhere mundane, like the grocery store.
Of course, the obvious conclusion here is that it doesn’t just happen in the
car. This beautiful limitless silence is available to us every single moment
of every single day. Any time I feel myself falling into old 3 D patterns of
though or behavior, I stop and listen to the silence. I breathe. I let these
glorious new/old higher frequencies wash over me. I remember who I am,
bathed in this glorious music of the spheres that exists inside me and I am
restored.
I think perhaps I need to finish that conversation with my grandson and
amend my answer. I need to introduce him to the silence within and tell
him that yes, I love to listen to music in the car.
As Thomas Merton said, “There are few who are willing to belong
completely to such silence, to let it soak into their bones, to breathe
nothing but silence, to feed on silence, and to turn the very substance of
their life into a living and vigilant silence.”
(Thank you, Stephanie, for this quote on Wednesday. It was perfectly
placed in my path.)
***This guidance column was written by Jan Finley for TheCosmicPath.com. It may be shared freely, but only when the author’s name and website are included.